‘Huh... That turned out better than I thought,’ Alec thought. Much to his surprise, he didn’t have any broken bones. He only had a few bruises here and there, and that was it.

After the first attack, the guard stopped underestimating Alec and started fighting seriously. He just dodged a few attacks, did a few simple jabs, and disarmed Alec. The other guard who had gotten hit on the head with a baton gathered his bearing and joined the fray. They then teamed up on Alec, taking him into a head-lock before long. At that point, Alec understood he had been completely bested and gave up fighting.

He had only tried running away. He was pretty sure there wouldn’t be some harsh punishment.

The two guards were holding him by his arms, walking him through the corridors of the infirmary building. He didn’t have the intention to fight back as he wouldn’t be able to escape even if he beat them.

‘This is good enough. At least something should happen now,’ he thought. His days were passing in complete obliviousness, and he felt like something weird was going on in the background. The thought of that made Alec try to scratch his arm, which was promptly stopped by the guard.

“It’s bleeding,” the guard said. Alec turned to look at him, his eyebrows raised. However, the guard turned his head without explaining any further. Alec also didn’t question what he had said.

While walking at a steady pace, he started taking notice of his surroundings. Much to his surprise, his guess about the other rooms of the building seemed to be true. Most of the rooms were unoccupied, and their doors were left open for some reason. Each room had the exact same layout as his; with 3 sickbeds, curtains separating those sickbeds, and bedside tables next to each of them.

“Why are these rooms unoccupied? Why are there this many sickrooms?” Alec asked. His question was left unanswered. One of the guards just shrugged while the other zoned out for a second.

What really confused Alec was, however, that there were partly or fully eaten plates of food left on those bedside tables. They all seemed to be eaten in different amounts and some were still steaming hot.

‘Hmm...’

The rest of the way was silent. They passed room after room. The building was empty. It was too empty actually. Alec didn’t see anyone on the way other than a few nurses. They had entered the building through a door facing the woods. It cleanly blended into the walls, which made it rather hard to spot.

They walked for a few more minutes and reached Alec’s sick room. The guards pushed him inside. However this time, instead of leaving the room, they started waiting inside the room, to the sides of the door. Their expressions were as steady as ever and they kept looking forward without any distractions.

‘Huh... Is that all? Shouldn’t my escape attempt cause something? No one even came along. Two guards caught me and brought me back to my sick room. And that’s all? No interrogation? No questioning?’ Alec thought.

“Are you guys going to... Keep waiting there?”

“Yeah,” one of the guards answered. He seemed disinterested. And besides that, he seemed confident in his decision. As if they already had a plan on what to do in case he made an escape attempt.

Alec plopped down on the bed while disregarding the guards. He didn’t have anything to do, not while there were guards breathing down his neck at least. So instead, he decided to go to sleep.

After all, what was better than a well-deserved sleep after making some innocent guards overwork in the middle of the night?

***

Alec woke up later in the afternoon. When he opened his eyes and stretched the kinks out of his body, he realized that the guards were already gone.

‘Huh... Isn’t that very... Lax?’ Alec thought. Last night, he had thought that he would be under much stricter scrutiny. However, the room was as empty as ever. The window wasn’t blocked, and the closet was still there, hell, they didn’t even take out the weights Alec had left inside the closet. If he wanted to, he could use the exact same tactic to try and escape.

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Which made him think that they had a reason to be this confident. They knew he couldn’t escape even if he tried to, which made Alec’s face sour.

The door to the room opened gently before a familiar face appeared.

“Hello there, Mr. Greenwood,” the woman who had just entered the room said. She was the white-haired purple-eyed woman who had cast a healing spell on him when he first came to this world. The click-clack of her high heels made Alec briefly glance down before raising his head.

“Hi,” Alec answered. His eyes locked onto the woman’s face. Her visage was as calm as the sea on a windless day. With steady steps, she approached Alec who was lying on the bed, and sat in a chair next to him before crossing her legs. She seemed undisturbed by Alec’s confusion.

“So? Why did you try escaping this night?” the woman asked as one of her brows rose. Alec shifted uncomfortably under her gaze and twiddled his thumbs. Gathering his thoughts, he thought of an answer.

“I don’t know,” he said. Finally, his gaze rose back up to meet the woman’s. “It has almost been two weeks since I healed completely, and I’m still not being let out. And no one is telling me the reason.”

Hearing Alec complain, the white-haired woman’s brows rose to form a frown. She grasped her chin, thinking for a few seconds. Alec was confused at the woman’s act of confusion. Surely, she knew how long he had been here, right?

“I see...” She muttered. For a second, Alec could see the light of an idea shine in her eyes, however, that idea quickly dissipated. Her ever-present frown came back. “Whatever... You can go back to school at the start of the semester, which is next week. Why were you... Nevermind. You can leave now.”

“Ha?” Alec exclaimed. His face soured in confusion. “After all that, why are you letting me out now?”

No matter what he asked, unfortunately, the woman didn’t seem to have the intention to answer.

The door clicked behind her, leaving Alec with a tightness in his chest.

“Something is wrong...” he muttered. He scratched his left arm and winced in pain.

***

No matter how much of an unnerving feeling he had inside his heart, Alec could still appreciate the sense of freedom. He picked up his belongings from one of the luggage lockers on the first floor of the building. When he finally stepped out of the front door, he felt a gentle wind brushing against his face, making him feel comfortable for the first time in a while.

Two meter-high double doors of the building revealed a beautiful courtyard full of lush green trees and orderly grass. There were small paved paths leading to different academy buildings.

Seeing these buildings, Alec felt a strange sense of familiarity. He pulled on the necktie of his black-white uniform to loosen it a little bit and look around. There weren’t many students, probably because it was, apparently, still a holiday.

As Alec passed through the courtyard, he started walking up to different buildings to familiarize himself with his surroundings. He didn’t know how many years he would have to spend inside this courtyard, around these buildings, so it was best to know what was where.

Passing by a grandiose cafeteria building, he memorized all the buildings and lecture halls in case he would have to go there for classes. Finally, after about half an hour, he reached the dorms. The dorms were made up of two buildings, one for girls and one for boys. There were high, brick walls surrounding those dorms. However, from what Alec could guess, he felt like no one in this school would try jumping the wall to peek at some girls.

Feeling the sun heating his skin, Alec quickly entered the building. He wasn’t good with heat and would escape it whenever he could.

The doors opened to a huge hall, with two spiraling, wooden stairs leading to the upper floors. Tall marble columns supported the building while giving it an artistic look. There were tables and chairs scattered throughout this hall, maybe giving the students someplace to spend time with their friends. An occasional plant was placed to take away from the serious aura of the place.

What surprised Alec was, however, how many of those tables were occupied. At least two hundred fifty students were sitting around, talking to their friends, which caused a cacophony of chatters. None of them seemed to react to Alec’s arrival other than the ones that sat close to the entrance. And even those who did react merely threw him a glance before going back to their endeavors.

‘Isn’t it supposed to be a holiday? Why would there be this many students, wouldn’t they go outsi-’

Alec appreciated their disinterest and made his way to the stairs. From a student ID he had found inside the chest pocket of his uniform, he figured out that he was in a dorm room on the fourth floor.

When Alec made it to his destination, he opened the door of the room. Then he was promptly blasted on the face with the smell of sweat and manliness.

In the middle of the room, the red-haired boy Evan was doing one-handed handstand push-ups with sweat gushing out of all of his pores.

When he sensed the door open, he quickly plopped down on the ground and looked at Alec.

“I...” he muttered. Then, suddenly, he got up and lunged toward Alec. “I’m sorry!”

Seeing the enthusiastic ball of sweat and tears hurtling toward him, Alec made an astonishingly swift evasive maneuver and let Evan pass by. Missing his target, Evan found himself outside the room, lying down on the corridor.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Alec asked with contempt in his face. The nauseating smell made him pinch his nose in disgust as he looked at Evan.

“Make the smell go away, right now.”

Shivering in place under Alec’s scrutinizing glare, Evan got up and ran back inside.

Watching him squirm around, Alec let a tired sigh escape through his mouth.

He seemed to have a lot of talking to do.